Sunday, July 07, 2013

Mantra - Spring 2013 short version

Every three months I've been posting new "episodes" of The Seasons. The most recent was entitled Spring 2013. Each "season" consists of one short musical bit representing every day during the given three month period. I try to compose one every day. Most of the seasons have some musical idea that unify the music, although I do make an effort to write each day's event without referencing previous segments.

At the end of each quarter I combine these musical fragments, separated by longer silences, and post them here on Mixed Meters. You can find links to the entire series easily enough.

I have also been making short versions of each season. These have identical music to the longer version. The only difference is that all the silence has been removed, generally a reduction of over 70%. I have not been posting the short versions. Until now.

The short version of Spring 2013 was more interesting to me than previous short versions. This is because each segment uses the same identical rhythm (played twice in double time on Mondays). When heard without separation this results in a very metric, rhythmical piece. (There is one segment with a touching little rallentando, but that's the only exception.)

Since the rhythm in question is that of the mantra I use for meditation (usually during my walks), this piece is very personal to me. That's because I know the words to the mantra. I have no intention of sharing those words and, as a result, no idea how others will hear this music.

I decided that this version deserves its own descriptive title - I chose Mantra. The word mantra holds certain religious connotations. It usually means something repeated over and over. My own mantra comes from the 80's when I was listening to the lectures of Ram Dass.

New Music Prudes will protest that there is already a piece entitled Mantra by Karlheinz Stockhausen. They should not worry because because my own piece, Mantra, is identical to Stockhausen's. Every pitch, every rhythm, every jot and every tittle of my piece is an exact perfect copy of what Stockhausen wrote over 40 years ago. This cosmic plagiarism just sort of happened by accident, I guess.